Ambassador Larry Dinger
Adviser
U.S. Mission to the United Nations
New York City
October 22, 2019
AS DELIVERED
Thank you, Special Rapporteur Quintana for the report and for your efforts to champion human rights in the DPRK.
The Special Rapporteur’s latest report reaffirms that patterns of systematic, gross, and widespread human rights violations and abuses continue.
We condemn all torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and we are deeply concerned by the government’s torture of prisoners of conscience and the abuse of prisoners through deliberate sexual violence. Prison conditions remain harsh and life threatening, including within the regime’s network of political prison and labor camps.
Special Rapporteur Quintana, we join your call for the immediate release of all those arbitrarily detained, including those who are imprisoned for their beliefs, and an end to severe restrictions on fundamental freedoms. We also urge the government to end its embargo on information and communication flowing freely into and within the country.
The United States condemns the government’s involvement in international abductions and forced disappearances. Migrant smuggling and trafficking in persons, especially to China, are increasing. We are gravely concerned about the reported use of torture and coerced abortions and infanticide following individuals’ forced repatriation to the DPRK.
The United States remains concerned about abuses of labor rights, including forced labor, child labor, unsafe working conditions, and inadequate pay; chronic food insecurity and malnutrition shaped by government mismanagement and misappropriation; and dire socio-economic conditions.
The United States finds it troubling that the government did not support 63 recommendations made in the course of the DPRK’s UPR on May 9.
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